Monday, December 11, 2006

XMas!

My dear friends,
I won't give you any special quotations tonight, i'm just curious to know how you celebrate Christmas in your own culture/country/family (if you do celebrate Xmas of course), what it means to you, and what your plans are for the coming one!!!
I propose tou to use the comments to answer, otherwise it will turn messy if everyone writes a complete post on that!
Lots of Xmas Love to everyone!
Marie

oh yes, nevermind, some favourite Xmas quotations!
"last Christmas i gave you my heart..."
"i'm dreaming of a white Christmas...."
"let it snow let it snow let it snooooooooooooooooooooow"

héhéhé
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4 comments:

Marie said...

And since i wrote this article, i've to answer it!
in my family, we used to spend XMas in Sweden with my father's part of the Westholm family, in Stockholm (i could explain you the swedish one too if you want)
Since my grandma's death few years ago, our tradition now has been to celebrate XMas in Paris, at home. On the 24th at night we go to the theatre and have small XMas dinner after (did you like the foie gras on sunday?!). Then some can go to the Midnight Service. Then good night of sleep to let Santa do his job, until the morning when we open the presents around the tree. the 25th is mainly family time to spend with grandparents, uncles, cousins etc....
:)

December 11, 2006 at 8:17:00 PM GMT+1
Marie said...

Swedish Xmas according to my souvenirs!
it starts early on the 24th, with a nice XMas family lunch (with XMas ham, salmon, glögg, julmust, porridge,...). Then it's quiet time for a while, in front of the fire (we used to work on solving a giant puzzle every year!). Coffee time corresponds to "Kalle Anka" time on TV: it's a compilation of all thebest parts of Disney Movies, the songs that everyone knows by heart (Kalle Anka is the sw name for Donald!), it's sweet (i miss that!). Then it was singing XMas songs around the piano...until my uncle or the neighbour, dressed like Santa, knocked on the door to start the present-opening time :)
now it's your turn!!

December 11, 2006 at 8:24:00 PM GMT+1
Oleg said...

My turn? Ok! Well, I never celebrated Christmas before… I’m not a Christian myself and I come from the country which was forced into atheism for the past 70 years of its history (and for the last 10 years it was forced into aggressive xenophobic Orthodox Christianity, which doesn’t seem more humane to me…). Oh, and they celebrate Xmas on January 7th, that’s the worst, haha!

But I have an idea of my first (and perfect, of course!) Christmas celebration. It will happen here, in Lund. On December 24th somewhere in the afternoon my LUMES family (those still staying in town) will gather, we’ll cook a big dinner together, consisting of many-many dishes from around the world (some of them even vegan!). It will take us about two or three hours, and we’ll joke a lot while preparing it. Then we all will sit and eat it with a great gusto, but still lots of foods will be left for later that night. Then we’ll split into small ever-changing groups and private conversations… Some of us will watch Kalle Anka on the TV, some will absent-mindedly browse magazines and books, some would even take a small nap on the sofa. Then we will all be up for midnight, trying to catch Santa doing his delivering business! We’ll stay up throughout the night, we’ll meet the sunrise together and welcome the first rays of light, and then we’ll drop with exhaustion everywhere on sofas, chairs and even the floor…

But not me. I’ll walk to the train station and take train to Copenhagen. I’ll meet my very old (I mean, they’re all my age, but I know them from 6 years ago!) and very close friends there, and we’ll spend entire day walking around, visiting Christiania, Tivoli, cafés, and my friends’ places… I’ll sleep like baby the following night and through most of the 26th of Dec, and in the evening I’ll meet a couple of my LUMES friends and together we’ll take a night train to Germany… There my first Christmas will end and the crazy international New Year Week will begin!

December 11, 2006 at 10:20:00 PM GMT+1
David said...

well, xmas in new zealand is probably a bit different than what you are all used to... what with being summer and all... i guess the tradition is that the period up until the 25th is family time, and from the 26th you take off to the beach (or in my case, the mountain jungle) with your friends... anyway, we don't do much on the 24th except struggle to sleep with anticipation for the following morning. you start with stockings filled with candy, fruit and small toys. this covers most of the morning until lunchtime and the main event: roast lamb, potatoes, pumpkin, kumara (sweet potato), onions, parsnip, brocolli, cauliflower... all coated in lavish quantities of mint sauce... hmmmmm, mint sauce :-)

then presents and maybe a meringue-like cake (called pavlova) for dessert... perhaps topped off with some fresh strawberries... being summer, i often got sports equipment and spent most of the day bullying my mum or sisters into playing cricket with me...

the more aquatically-inclined would go to the beach and climb the multi-trunked pohutukawa tree that is also known as the "new zealand christmas tree" for its bright red flowers that bloom in december...

the day would finish with bag packing and excitement for another trip to an unexplored corner of paradise... it is strange now that i think about it - we really do have "all our christmases coming at once" and very little to look forward to in july and the depths of winter... except rugby, but that is another story :-)

December 11, 2006 at 10:43:00 PM GMT+1

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